(Bloomberg) — House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy said Republicans are prepared to pull back on US aid to Ukraine next year if they gain control of the House, reflecting a growing sentiment in the party for the country to be less involved overseas.
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“I think people are gonna be sitting in a recession and they’re not going to write a blank check to Ukraine,” McCarthy said in an interview with Punchbowl News published Tuesday. “They just won’t do it.”
While supporting Ukraine in battling against Russia’s invasion still has bipartisan support in Congress, a faction of Republicans aligned with former President Donald Trump’s “America first” stance has been questioning the US role in providing weapons and other support. Congress passed $40 billion package of aid for Ukraine in May, with 11 Republicans in the Senate and 57 in the House voting against it. Another $12 billion in assistance was included in a stopgap government funding bill passed by Congress in September.
Republicans are likely to win control of the House in the November election, according to independent analysts, and McCarthy is poised to become speaker if that happens. Control of the Senate remains a toss-up, but even if Democrats retain control of that chamber a GOP House majority would be able stifle President Joe Biden’s agenda.
McCarthy in the interview said part of the reason for dialing back aid is that the Biden administration is ignoring domestic issues that the GOP sees as a priority, such as securing the US southern border.
“People begin to weigh that,” the California Republican said. “Ukraine is important, but at the same time it can’t be the only thing they do and it can’t be a blank check.”
The Biden administration and congressional Democrats have argued that the aid to Ukraine is in the interest of the US and its NATO allies and cutting back would embolden Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“A Republican-led House could undermine that support and that would be bad for the Ukrainians, it would be bad for our unity with NATO,” Virginia Senator Mark Warner said Tuesday in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s “Balance of Power with David Westin.” “If Putin sees that kind of isolationist approach he will press that advantage.”
Representative Michael McCaul of Texas, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said said in an interview that elements of his party are concerned about the cost of the effort but not the goal.
“I think there’s still broad bipartisan support for the effort,” McCaul said. “We want to ensure that our NATO partners are stepping up to the plate and bearing the burden of the cost.”
McCaul said McCarthy’s comments don’t mean aid will be cut necessarily.
“I think he’s just saying we’re not going to write a blank check without oversight and accountability, which my committee will be providing.” McCaul said.
McCarthy also told Punchbowl News that he plans to leverage the need to raise the nation’s debt ceiling to rein in government spending. In recent weeks other top Republicans have said they plan to seek curbs to entitlement programs as a price for the debt ceiling increase, reprising a strategy successfully employed against President Barack Obama in 2011 by House Republicans. During that market-rattling battle, Democrats agreed to cuts to discretionary spending through caps.
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